Of course, for many, she was the archetypical stay-at-home TV mom, dressed to the nines even as she hovered over apple pies in the kitchen, who was to quickly to fall out of favor both in pop culture and real life. The late '70s and '80s would usher in the reality of the two-income household and the idea that women could, and should, be able to pursue careers and motherhood simultaneously.
But the Carol Brady character was never quite as simple and traditional as she appeared to those who dismissed the show as another sugary, simplistic and unrealistic view of the American family (which it often was). But if you dug a little deeper (which I was able to do by the fact I probably watched every episode at least 10 times throughout my childhood), you saw a character who was more complex, nuanced and powerful than the June Cleavers and Harriet Nelsons who preceded her.
Yes, Carol Brady at times seemed all too content in her role as a stay-at-home mom, always putting the interests of her children and husband first and never exhibiting any angst about spending each day at home in the company of the Brady's full-time, live-in maid (whose very presence would have seemed a strong argument for why Carol Brady could have and should have pursued her own aspirations outside the Brady home).
Carol Brady may have been a mom and wife first and foremost, but those roles went far beyond the kitchen. Carol Brady was a civic activist who would lead the fight to save a cherished local park, even if it cost her husband's architectural firm business. She was an outspoken parent advocate who was always immersed in one PTA activity or another, whether it was raising money for an important cause or working to stamp out teen smoking. And she was the ideal model of the loving, firm, thoughtful parent, the one who would take her stepson's word for it when he said the pack of cigarettes that dropped out of his pocket weren't his own; the one who showed no qualms about having her daughter bounced from the lead role in the school play when the part clearly went to her head; and the one who would confront the mom of the school bully to try to settle things like women ("Women are different, we'll just sit calmly and work everything out.").
One scene in the "Fistful of Reasons" episode that confronted bullying perfectly illustrated that Carol Brady was far from the stereotypical doting housewife. When she confronts Buddy Hinton's mother and learns that she goes along with whatever her husband says, Carol looks on in stunned disbelief.
In some ways, Carol Brady was ahead of her time, even if her role wasn't. When it came to running the Brady household and laying down the law, she was an equal partner with her husband, who often seemed to escape to the sanctuary of his den or a Saturday golf game while Mrs. Brady took the lead in putting out the family fires. She may have even have had the foresight in predicting the football concussion crisis, by her outspoken opposition to letting Greg Brady play high school football.
And she was not shy about taking on the stereotypical gender roles that her own character represented, encouraging her daughter to speak her mind on feminism and seek to join Greg's Boy Scout troop. In one of the only episodes that betrayed a sense of tension and conflict between Mike and Carol, she came out forcefully in favor of giving her daughters equal access to the boys' backyard clubhouse.
That might not have been quite up there with fighting for equal pay and paid time off, but amidst the burgeoning cultural changes of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was a start. In the years that followed the Brady Bunch, Carol Brady would become a rope in a cultural tug of war between those who celebrated and cherished the traditional role of the stay-at-home mom and those who felt the Carol Bradys of the world had much more to offer (and, indeed, you easily could have seen Carol Brady morphing into a Mary Tyler Moore later in the '70s). But at the end of the day, there was one fact about her on which all could agree, and which explained why kids like myself couldn't get enough of the Brady Bunch, no matter how simple or silly the plot lines.
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She was one awesome mom.
About a year ago, I started recording Brady Bunch reruns to share with my own children. We spent weeks watching every episode together, mostly to enjoy a few laughs about the "groovy" fashions of the 1970s and life in the pre-Internet and smart phone era where six children were left to fight over one landline. Plus, they could get a chuckle or two from the fact that their nerdy dad could recite pretty much every line before it was spoken.
But Carol Brady's motherly love had an impact even on their generation. After sitting through every episode with me, my youngest daughter wrote the following email to Florence Henderson praising her work as Carol Brady.
From,
Leia L. (A HUGE fan!)
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